Litanies of the Faithful

Hello reader, yes you specifically.

I’m assuming if you’re reading this Blog, you’ve probably played video games, board games, any games at some point in your life and have heard the word ‘Meta’ thrown around before. In this article I’m going to be discussing what it means, and its importance in the Warhammer 40k tabletop game.

Related to games in general, the meta can be defined as the most effective strategies, tactics, or playstyles that dominate competitive play. The meta is ever evolving and changing as new strategies and information about the game is discovered and tested, as well as when balance changes occur.

It essential boils down to what works best to win. Figuring this out however, isn’t always straight forward.

What is meta typically warps itself around a few key principles. In 10th edition Warhammer 40k it is mostly influenced by the core rules, army rules, and mission rules, and terrain used. Gamers scour this information attempting to identify the best strategies.

Changes to the meta occur when there are rules changes, these have been few and far between in previous editions of Warhammer but nowadays we get new points every 3 months, and new rules every 6 months. They also occur when codices are released for armies – this is often the most impactful to the meta – when a new mission pack is released each year and when new editions are dropped.

Using this information, an initial meta will form. These can differ from region to region, and even from tournament to tournament as different FAQ and terrain packs are used. Expanding on this further, it can be influenced by who is attending the event. You may need to incorporate a strategy against a specific army that you know a competitive player is bringing and has had a lot of practice with, even though it’s not representative in the general meta.

As you can imagine, this is quite complicated. But it gets worse. In a game as complicated and now everchanging as 40k, the ones that can solve the meta first will be rewarded. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the meta will be completely solved before there is another change – a codex being dropped, or a balance dataslate – nor does it mean these changes will even impact the meta. Not only this, but there are also other influences outside of directly identifying the mathematically best strategies that impact the meta.

Player discovery – As some players race to the top to identify the best strategies, others look for new synergies, builds or combos in an attempt to ‘break’ the meta. Occasionally this works, and the meta will need to adapt to these discoveries, even though no rules in the game have changed. An example of this can be found in Drew Salzborn’s win of the Midgards May 40k GT Event | Best Coast Pairings. Playing Kroot Hunting Pack, spamming Krootox, Hammer heads and Sky Rays wouldn’t have been considered a typical meta pick prior to the event, but was undoubtably incredibly strong. Throughout his run Drew took down Emperor’s children and Necron’s twice, as well as Ynnead Eldar, all of which were considered strong meta choices at the time.

Pro play and influencers – Speaking of Drew’s success and the broader media coverage Warhammer receives now; these wins can cause surges in the greater community towards certain strategies. Even now my local T’au player can be seen putting Krootox on the table where previously he would denounce the use of Kroot, ‘I want to play T’au to shoot cool guns, not play Krootox’. If certain youtubers say ‘this is incredibly strong’ you will likely see an uptick of the strategy at tournaments in the following weeks. Although these strategies and tactics can be difficult for casual players to replicate well, the meta can also adjust to these strategies, making them less effective.

Risk vs. Reward & Efficiency – There is no glory in taking risks, and the meta revolves around what gives the highest chance of winning for the least risk or effort. This is a bit piss in a hobby-based wargame when we want to play with our cool toys. Sometimes your favourite model has poo rules, so it’s not the best to take it. Although some strategies may be incredibly lame and boring – wolf jail for example – it will dominate the meta if it wins games.

Counterplay – Typically as a strategy dominates, players will search for counters to the strategy, the meta then warps in response to these counters creating cycles. This isn’t exactly straight forward in Warhammer – as you win by scoring VPs and not tabling your opponent – and can be incredibly nuanced. There are a number of general strategies and archetypes that tend exist at any given time in Warhammer:

• Stat check armies – Knights/Chaos Daemons
• Horde armies – Genestealer Cult/Astra Militarum/Tyranids
• Move blocking – Adeptus Mechanicus/ Genestealer Cult
• Gunline – T’au/Astra Militarum
• Fighting – World Eaters/Blood Angels/Orks
• Alpha strike – Drukhari/Genestealer Cult/Emperor’s Children
• Mobility/Skirmishing – Drukhari/Aeldari
• Anvil/Deathstar – CSM/Necrons/Death Guard/Custodes
• Control – Space Marines/Necrons/Adepta Sororitas
• Toolbox – Aeldari/Genestealer Cult/1k sons
• MSU – Drukhari/Adepta Sororitas
• Elite – Custodes/Knights/Dark Angels
• Castle – Grey Knights/Imperial Guard/Knights/T’au/Votann

There are probably more that are listed here, and they aren’t exactly strict either. They have a lot of cross over and depending on the match up, archetypes and roles, strategies of lists can change. Armies can also field multiple different archetypes using different lists and detachments.

Rules and terrain – Different regions, UK, US, Europe, Oceanic use different FAQ’s and terrain layouts. This means that these regions all form unique metas. Trying to use information from a tournament in the US to plan for the meta may be useless if you are playing in Australia because of how terrain influences list building and match ups.

In short, I can’t be bothered. It’s just easier to do what I do in every other game. Use google to find what the best players are doing and just copy that.

Then why aren’t I winning events?

It’s clearly not a skill issue; I am the best player. Could it be that in the week between me copying the list, and playing in the tournament the meta has changed that much? No. Could it be there is uncontrollable variance in this dice game and to win an event not only do you need to be a good player, but you also genuinely need to have a good run of match ups and be lucky with key dice rolls and secondary draws? No, it’s not possible that chance is involved. I am better than you.

So why bother conforming to a meta that requires you to play a specific way, emphasising efficiency, reducing what is flashy, fun, and interesting, for what? A 5-10% better win rate, maybe? How could you possibly quantify that difference.

How good is following the meta really? How much worse is not conforming.

This can range from mildly suboptimal – playing the Adeptus Mechanicus – to completely unplayable – Imperial Agents.

Stat Check would have you believe that in the current Meta AdMech have a 45% win rate. Anecdotally speaking, mine is 61.5% across three tournaments in this meta, and the lists I am running aren’t even close to being ‘optimal’. Additionally, Knights have a 57% win rate, although my local Knights players tournament WR is closer to 40%. I’m sure this rings true for almost everyone that reads this blog, and anyone that’s participated in a competitive environment before. These differences could be due entirely to previously discussed factors, chance, path through event, lists, region, the list goes on forever.

It depends on where you are.

For casual games at your LGS or playing with friends you could pretty much win with anything. Local metas tend to be more extreme with some players having 1-2 armies with limited models. List tailoring is frowned upon though.

For tournaments and competitive play, bringing something non-meta means you’ll typically be punching up. Although not impossible, it will be harder to get wins.

How much worse is off-meta?

Personally, I don’t think it’s that much worse at all. There is so much variance in the game that it doesn’t matter as much as you would be led to believe. Will you be able to win a tournament? Probably not, but let’s face it, you’re not going to win a tournament anyway. Does that really matter? As I discussed before with the influence of chance, variance, pairings and match ups, nope. Statistically you’re better off just going to as many tournaments as you can, mathematically, odds are you will win one eventually.

What are the other options?

Actually enjoying the game.

It is possible, that through your own volition, the conclusion you come to with respect to your own analysis of the state of the game is the same as others, and the list you create matches ones found in the meta, doing well at tournaments.

That is a completely reasonable conclusion to come to. It is often very apparent what is strong, and being advised by the mission pack will tell you what units you need in your list to score points, and where to deploy and move them during the game.

The more likely scenario is you start playing Warhammer because you saw a cool model and got psyched, only to realize no one runs it because its output is 7% worse than a comparable unit. Play the cool model, it’s not going to make that much of a difference.

List building

Arguably, the meta has the biggest impact on list building. Once you start playing a game there is a lot of strategy involved, but your list is already locked in at that point so it’s time to go.

Scouring lists to get ideas is a good start to identifying trends in the meta, but it can be difficult to deduce why some list builders have made the decisions they have.

I was watching a Wargames live stream in the first year of 10th edition and they had the Adepta Sororitas on, a faction that I played a lot. One of the commentators confidently explained the list, stating which characters would be paired to each unit, when the game started, they were completely wrong.

A huge benefit you obtain from building your own list is a deeper understanding of the role each unit has in the game, and how you intend to use them – I look at AdMech lists with 30 Pteraxii in them and think why? but it works, I’ve just never played with them, so I have no idea how – This allows you to actually play the game in a reasonable amount of time and be confident in your decisions. It will have a greater impact on your enjoyment of the game, as well as win rate as compared to copying a tournament winning list. You will be a more successful Warhammer player by doing so.

To give a final answer to the question of if you should break free of the meta, or continue to grind away at the percentages attempting to find the ‘ultimate‘ list?

I don’t know man, you do you.

Cya nerds.